By Maya Shimizu Harris
Casper Star-Tribune
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

CASPER — Any legal action on the part of Wellspring Health Access against Wyoming’s abortion trigger ban would likely come when the state moves to certify the law, a spokesperson from the organization said.

The nonprofit organization was set to open an abortion clinic in Casper this summer. It would have been one of only two clinics in Wyoming to offer abortions. But the clinic’s prospect for offering abortions is up in the air following the passage of an abortion trigger ban in Wyoming earlier this year and the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade on Friday.

Julie Burkhart, founder of Wellspring Health Access, said in a June 24 press conference following the reversal of Roe v. Wade that she is looking into potential legal action over the trigger ban. The clinic team is working with legal counsel to explore that avenue, she said.

Casper attorney Ryan Semerad said that under Wyoming law, plaintiffs in a potential lawsuit contesting the trigger ban would have to show that it is tangibly harming people at the moment. That could be hard to do right now because Wyoming’s abortion ban hasn’t actually taken effect.

He added that there could be ways of showing that people in Wyoming are currently being negatively impacted by the trigger law, even though abortions aren’t banned. But a lawsuit could be thrown out before it’s even considered if the harm is too speculative, he said.

Giovannina Anthony, a doctor at the Women’s Health Center & Family Care Clinic in Jackson, said she plans to join a lawsuit to contest the state’s trigger abortion ban.

“It’s the regulation of women’s sexuality by the state,” she said of the abortion ban in an interview at the Jackson clinic. “That’s the ultimate effect.”

Anthony started the clinic’s medication abortion services 17 years ago when she became a staff member there. It’s the only clinic in Wyoming that provides abortions.

Anthony previously said the clinic will continue to give the service as long as it’s legal, but is unlikely to provide abortions under the trigger law’s exemptions. She said at the Jackson clinic on Monday that the ban has a “chilling effect” on Wyoming physicians, who could risk a felony charge and 14 years in prison under the trigger law if they are determined to have given an illegal abortion.

“I don’t think we can risk it,” she previously told the Star-Tribune.

Legal action could block Wyoming’s abortion ban from taking effect, at least temporarily, like it has in neighboring Utah.

The Planned Parenthood Association of Utah filed a lawsuit on Saturday against that state’s trigger ban, which had taken effect late Friday.

On Monday, appointment requests from Utahns seeking abortions surged at the clinic in Jackson. Later that day, a Utah judge granted Planned Parenthood’s request for a two-week restraining order to block enforcement of the ban. (Anthony said on Wednesday that people from Utah who had scheduled appointments at the Jackson clinic subsequently cancelled them).

The block on Utah’s abortion ban would last for the duration of the lawsuit if Planned Parenthood is granted a preliminary injunction.